{"id":43816,"date":"2018-06-10T19:02:42","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T02:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.originalprop.com\/blog\/?p=43816"},"modified":"2026-05-02T05:56:48","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T12:56:48","slug":"editorial-profiles-in-historys-four-day-icons-legends-of-hollywood-planet-hollywood-auction-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.originalprop.com\/blog\/2018\/06\/10\/editorial-profiles-in-historys-four-day-icons-legends-of-hollywood-planet-hollywood-auction-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Editorial: Profiles in History’s Four Day “Icons & Legends of Hollywood” (Planet Hollywood) Auction Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The massive Profiles in History “Icons & Legends of Hollywood” four day auction concluded on Friday, and it certainly illustrates some different results when compared to past sales held by the entertainment memorabilia auction house.\u00a0 With over 2,000 lots, it was a tremendous amount of material for the market to absorb all at once, and I suspect that this was reflected in the results.\u00a0 Though the official results have not yet been published on the official Profiles website<\/a> as of the time of this writing, in going through the results published by internet bidding partner iCollector<\/a> (and under the assumption that these results also reflect floor and phone bids), it would appear that approximately 45% of the lots were passed over with no bids.\u00a0 I counted approximately 922 unsold lots, and adding up the total it appears that in the final sale that there were 2,050 lots (with 39 lots pulled prior to auction?)…\u00a0 But the other compounding factor is how many lots were sold for far less than one might expect based on past sales.\u00a0 Items that would ordinarily pull in $5,000+ were going for under $2,000 and sometimes even under $1,000.\u00a0 With so much to choose from, it may have become a buyer’s market and it seemed as though some collectors were looking for deals – and finding them.<\/p>\n

However, it seemed as though Profiles in many cases moved away from the “jackpot” reserve\/estimate model<\/a> (with a perceived higher than market value minimum bid required, so as to only require one bidder for a lot to realize a very high price), as many of the reserves\/estimates on the lower and mid-level material seemed quite reasonable.<\/p>\n

Of course, there was the periodic “home run” result, but these were few and far between overall, and there were some big misses in this regard as well.<\/p>\n

I was fascinated reading the chat from collectors in various groups\/forums as the sale carried on, as the reactions were quite different from what I’ve come to expect from these big Profiles events.<\/p>\n

Leading into the auction, there was significant talk about issues with authentication and some of the descriptions as well as some pieces being outright wrong (leading out with the Obi-Wan lightsaber being pulled<\/a> the same day the catalog was released online, and hence a number of lots being pulled pre-auction), so there was some added caution among savvy buyers, feeling an even bigger burden than usual to do their own research on lots that they were interested in buying (which everyone should always do anyway, regardless of the auction house).<\/p>\n

Of course, one of the perplexing elements of this sale was the fact that a significant number of lots (though certainly not all) were identified by collectors as pieces from Planet Hollywood, yet “Planet Hollywood” appears no where in the catalog and auction descriptions.\u00a0 So that critical piece of the history of the related items was not declared in the descriptions, and in some cases may be lost on the winning bidders of these items.\u00a0 In this market, provenance and authenticity is everything, and in this case, a critical piece of information was not provided to potential buyers.<\/p>\n

More, there is specific history with some of the pieces coming from Planet Hollywood that was lost in the translation.\u00a0 As an example, prior to the auction I was in communication with Jim Latta, who worked with Planet Hollywood in acquisitions back in the day.\u00a0 A friend of mine was interested in a high end piece in the auction, so I asked Jim about it.\u00a0 He remembered that he was asked to take the lead in its restoration, as it was incomplete.\u00a0 None of this history regarding restoration was part of the auction description.<\/p>\n

I had a number of people reach out to me with specific concerns about specific pieces; some of these were pulled prior to auction and some were not.<\/p>\n

I took a cursory skim through the results published on iCollector and have prepared some examples and highlights below…\u00a0 All results include Buyer’s Premium.<\/p>\n

Home Runs:<\/p>\n